Job Satisfaction

How could I forget her face when she left us saying she did not get any job satisfaction in that institute where we have been working for years together. I didn’t know whether her decision was right but only felt that she had a strong urge to leave the work she never liked to do. She wanted a little more freedom. She wanted to prove herself differently. She wanted to work according to her own terms.

In this free country if you talk about freedom, make sure that in what context you are referring to it. In a working place if you talk about it, it will be taken as rebellious and revolting. In any working place people who think on their own, work according to their special talent and give some innovative ideas which may be revolutionary, will never be welcomed and tolerated. They will have to face rather a challenging task of obeying the dictates of the boss, whether the boss is right or his dictates are detrimental to the progress of the institution. They keep a slogan on display in the office, ‘The boss is always right.’ This slogan teaches us to follow the leader and learn to say nothing but ‘YES BOSS’.

I happened to read the outcome of one research study that job satisfaction increases with age. Workers about fifty are the most satisfied while people under thirty are the least happy with their work. At fifty perhaps you have crossed all the turning points of career and you become contented wherever you are. But in the beginning of your career your expectations are high and you have more options to choose from. She was just 23 and the whole life with all its adventures was open to her. Moreover she was a little different and preferred to tread the un-trodden path.

She was different it was evident the way she left the job abruptly without a second thought. What was job satisfaction for her? We, ‘the cattle class’, never thought of that. Whatever work was allotted to us we did it sincerely and without any objection. We performed all the duties assigned to us so ceremoniously and religiously that there was hardly any chance of raising eyebrows over it. I also remember for this unquestionable demeanour we were classified as ‘bonded labour’ by her which I think is correct to some extent.

When she joined the office she was bubbling with new ideas and a passion to do something challenging. She was given a task where she had to follow the instructions of the superior, but she thought otherwise and declared that she was going to work according to her own ideas and the boss should only see the results. If the outcome was positive he could give his permission to continue the task. This was not acceptable to the boss. There were strict guidelines to follow for the working in the office.

For every new move she pursued, she started getting adverse comments with a warning to obey the given instructions. Perhaps it was her fault to be above average, to be innovative. She was perfect in her work. There was no problem of any dereliction of duties or negligence of work, as she was punctual and honest. The only problem with her was her thinking beyond a certain limit, the limit which delimited her to be within her limits.

We were all stunned due to her drastic move and were dumbfounded when she declared that she was leaving the job. In this recession recovering stage where there are varieties of jobs available in the wanted column only and the leaders of Vidarbha promised to have created thousands of jobs for the still jobless or underemployed youth, getting a decent job is greater than a Herculean task or should I say in sterner tone it is a mirage or el dorado which you can see from a distance but can not find when you get closer to it.

She did not think a bit about her future. When you leave a job you are expected to have a certificate from the employer or a relieving of a sort which may help you to get another job. She declared that she would not do any such jobs where her freedom was sacrificed. I gave a serious thought to it and found that freedom at a working place is something non-existing entity. If you think of freedom or in new terminology, a little more space, you will lend yourself in some serious trouble. Once you are employed, the real challenge of your life gets a kick start. The employers generally need a docile donkey and not a troublesome monkey. It is up to you to prove yourself either of these. Now I want to see whether she gets some decent job or remain jobless due to her mulish expectation. But her move was really exemplary.

Twilight Years

Twilight Years  (Appeared in Middle Space on 8^th Jan 2011)

Shakespeare has rightly sung while comparing age and youth:

‘Crabbed Age and Youth / Cannot live together: / Youth is full of pleasance,

Age like winter weather, / Youth like summer morn, / Age like winter bare:

Youth is full of sport, / Age’s breath is short, / Youth is nimble, Age is lame:

Youth is hot and bold, / Age is weak and cold, / Youth is wild, and Age is tame.’

On account of increasing average age of a man in our country, the population of aged people is increasing and the ratio of aged population is also increasing in proportion to the overall population. According to 2001 census the aged population was 7 crore which was 6.9% of the total population. It is believed that by 2025 the population of aged people will be 17 crore which will be 12.4% of the total population. Evidently, this is a reasonably large portion of the population and a special attention should be given to area. Now India is a young country but soon it will be an aged nation. My conviction has become stronger to it when I see more and more senior citizens for morning walk rather than the young India who prefer to be awake all night and lie down during pleasant morning hours.

Old age is life’s inevitable yet unlikable truth. This stage of life needs special preparations. A time comes in life when most of constructive and productive activities are stopped. The weak and fragile body needs a strong support. The life during youth flies happily and swiftly but the last phase of life goes as slowly as our old body. Motions become slower, reflexes become dimmer, and movements become lesser and lesser. The fever of loneliness grips harder and harder. This is the stage of life when you have surpassed all the adventures of youthful journey. You have immense amount of experience and wisdom. But on the other hand the body vigour starts diminishing. You face new problems and challenges on your way. You have lot of leisurely hours but no specific work to finish.

Your children have started their own life and settled down comfortably with their children. You are alone. If your spouse is alive, he or she will give you company in this acute phase of boredom. Those who get retirement after successfully completing their respective jobs lose their respect and prestige as soon as they get retirement and feel being ignored and insulted. A wide vacuum is created in their life. They feel cheated. The most glaring problem which is erupted after retirement is financial crunch. Your source of income is redirected and depends upon your savings.

It is not only financial front where you find yourself weak, but it is also your physical strength and health which needs to be taken care of. Many old and new ailments grip you and shack you to the hilt. You expect your children to look after you at that time but they are busy in their family and children and hardly spare time to look after you. It is quite natural that in such situation you become harassed, despondent, and depressed.

Coleridge laments:

‘When I was young! Ah, Woeful When!’

When youth and I lived together,

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower like; Friendship is a sheltering tree;

Of friendship, love and Liberty,

Ere! I was old!’

It is funny how everyone wants to live long but no one wants to grow old. Old age is viewed as an unavoidable, undesirable problem-ridden phase of life that awe all are compelled to live, marking time until our final exit from life itself. Perceiving old age with fear is actually a rather recent phenomenon. It seems to increase as each day passes and the world become more complex and less comprehensible. Earlier, when life was simpler and values counted for more, those who reached a ripe old age held an enviable place in society where they could really relax and enjoy their twilight years, secure in the knowledge that they still commanded attention, respect and affection, and that though they were well past their prime, all that they had given their best for was still important and so were they.

But now with the twist of time and destiny the life becomes more challenging as you are turning towards a new childhood when people want you to become more serious. New childhood means revived interest in delicious dishes, new places, fresh visits, new friendships and trying new things like a beginner. Anthony Powell was not very far off the mark when he wrote, “Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.” This is a grim reality though the contrary should have been true. The twilight years ought to have been the best years of a person’s life, freed from the responsibility of having to make a living one finally has all the time to actually live – “Sit in the shade, Reliving the good old times, Letting bad memories fade.”

VALUE-BASE(D) MANAGEMENT!!!

The other day I got an SMS from my friend Beena when I was preparing to go to attend a conference on Changes in Management Studies. It reads “The essence of management lies in dropping the last letter of the damn word ‘Management’ and it turns out to be ‘Manage Men’ and if you further drop another letter (as the galls of today drop their attire) it becomes ‘Manage Me’” The first thought that came to my mind was thank God it is ‘manage men’ and not ‘manage women’. Managing men must be easier than managing Women. For Managing women you need some special skills and it is not something which can be easily managed.

Ask any one in the Govt. offices, you will get these routine answers: “Oh! Ladies in the office always have many excuses, they are lazy, they are never punctual, they shirk responsibility, it is quite exceptional to see them working without a prop of Men.” You may call me a little chauvinist for the time being. But we have to examine both sides of the coin to see if it is not a fake currency. Some may add that women are more sincere than men, they are more emotionally attached, they are a pleasant sight at dry and dull working places, and they are good associates and fine team workers.

Okay! I have to come back to the topic of ‘manage men’ which perhaps means if you manage the staff properly you are a good manager and women are also included in this category of ‘men’. Further if you manage yourself that is the essence of management. ‘Manage Me’ has several inherent and obsequious meanings for me. As you can also dare to think that managing others is a little easier task but managing oneself properly and efficiently may be a little challenging affair. In today’s context ‘Manage Me’ takes you to ponder over the recent examples of ‘Manage Me’.

On the same day I got another SMS from my journalist friend and she wrote, “New accounting terminology Act passed by Parliament of Fraud: 1 crore means one khoka, 500 crore means 1 Koda, 1000 crore means 1 Radia,10,000 crore means 1 Kalmadi and 100,000crore means 1 Raja. You got me right. Manage yourself with the best profiting way. This new way of thinking would not reject the importance of the existing systems, but would redesign systems to put ME first. It would create a new system of management that humanizes the workplace in modern sense of the term.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, a famous American management guru asserts: "In the past, man was first. In the future, the system will be first." If Taylor is to adapt the Indian system, he has to follow the ‘manage me’ formula which is always infallible in Indian context. Now the funda will be “In the past, system was first, but in the present, man (ME) is first” And it will be proved again that the world is round means we have become ‘globalized’ in true sense of the term, VERBATIM!! Isn’t it! In the past man was first and now in the present man is first. But the sense of the term has changed according to changing time.

That day I again got into the whirlpool of SMSes, and encountered with another sermon like message which reads: “The only place in India where food is cheap, is Indian Parliament Canteen. Can you imagine in Parliament for THOSE poor people who only earn Rs. 80,000/- per month the rates are: Tea 1.00/-, Daal 1.50/-,Meals 2.00/-, Chapati 1.00/-, Dosa 4.00/-, Veg Biryani 8.00/-, Soup 5.50/-, Fish 13.00/-, and Chicken 24.50/-.” They really need chicken in their meals otherwise malnutrition of Melghat will reach there and unnecessary free medical treatment will have to be provided to them in addition to free electricity, free telephone, free house rent, free traveling expenses (Car and Air car both) and free other additional luxuries.

I learnt many new things at the conference which diverted my attention from the text book knowledge that impressed me a lot and taught me, ‘the economic purpose of Value-Based Management is to help empower people and raise their human dignity and quality of life. Its principal means for achieving this end is expanded capital ownership’ but my encounter with new messages was not over and I got a new crisp message on my cell to tell me the practical side of corporate management. This time it was from my old colleague who came to know that I am trying to venture into management field. It was a cryptic advice for me, “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at each and every dog that barks…. Better keep biscuits and continue your journey” Dhirubhai Ambani said. And I started pondering over the issue of ‘biscuits’. Biscuits in the new sense of the term are sweet creams and crisps which make your thorny way smoother, swifter, easier and faster than ever before. These biscuits are necessary in each and every field whether it is management or administration. I then remembered of one old saying, “Sweets are the uses of adversity”.

Last but not the least I was advised my good friend to focus on ‘Manage Money’ because he was repenting one thing, he sent me an SMS “ I am famished!!! See the investment returns for one year. Gold 28%, Silver 80%, Crude 40%, Sensex 35% and ONION 880%, Saala 1 lakh ke onion liya hota to is saal NEW YEAR Europe mein manaa raha hota.” What a mismanagement!!!

(Published on 17^th Jan 2011 in Middle Space)

Oh Sunday! My Funday!

I remember a lesson ‘Monday Morning’ in my schooldays that was an excerpt from the novel ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ of a famous British writer Mark Twain. Tom is a very naughty boy, who never likes Monday mornings. For Monday morning always makes him miserable as it reminds him of the whole week of suffering ahead and the pain of leaving behind the freedom of happily spent Sunday without going to school. On Sunday only, he is able to spend the whole day according to his own sweet will.

That particular Sunday he is assigned with the work of whitewashing the fence by his aunt as a punishment for steeling jam. He wants to go to enjoy his day. Being very naughty he hatches a plan and pretends that whitewashing is a sheer fun for him. His friends come to him one by one and find him enjoying that tedious work and request him to share the joy of painting. Tom gets them to do all the work for him and in return he takes from them some triflings like pebbles, a kite, conch shells, an apple and many more such things. Ultimately he makes his Sunday as enjoyable as ever at the expense of his silly friends.

Sunday is considered a non-working day in many countries of the world, and is a part of the weekend. There are historical records that say Constantine and Henry, the VI officially declared Sunday as a holiday. As the Christianity considers Sunday as their Sabbath day (seventh day Adventist) this day is being observed by them as weekly holiday. The Bible explains how the God created the whole world in six days and rested on the seventh i.e. on Sunday. The saintly people always suggest to follow the path of God and God himself rested on the seventh day, why not we? I suggest you to follow the right path shown by the God. Albert Schweitzer says, “Do not let Sunday be taken from you, if your soul has no Sunday it becomes an orphan.”

This is the day everyone wants to do whatever one likes to do. In this emaciated world of just 365 days a year, just 30-31 days in a month and merely 7 days in a week how would one accommodate one’s desire to do what one likes. After all we are social animals and need a day to socialize amongst our near and dear. The idea of writing about Sunday came to my mind when almost on eight consecutive Sundays I had been called for one or the other official assignments in the name of Sunday being a free day. And then I felt like wishing for Mondays or Wednesdays but not Sundays. This made me realize the importance of Sunday as fun-day. Now I am convinced that one needs a break and even a machine breaks down when made to work continuously. And we are not machines. Life is a gift of God and a gift should be by rule pleasurable. And Sunday has a major role to play in this pleasure. If somebody robs you from availing this pleasure, let a curse of Hell fall on him.

My special wrath is against those (bosses) who always seek sedative pleasure in calling and engaging people on Sundays and spoil the festive, free and relaxing mood of such days. I also strongly feel that one should work on all working days sincerely, seriously and untiringly. But the mood becomes different the moment the calendar announces it a Sunday. Children sprightly call it a Fun-day. And on fun-day one should have only fun and one can pursue one’s hobby and nothing else as it energizes and replenishes you with the new vigour of working for all the next six days uninterruptedly. I strongly believe in what the Irish novelist, Maria Edgeworth sings: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and all play and no work makes Jack a mere boy.” The “Sunday” computer virus, a member of the Jerusalem virus family discovered in 1989, contained a reference to the proverb and corrupted the files created on Sundays. So Sunday workaholics beware!!!

I have a special grudge against those quality maintaining machineries like ISO 2000, MCI, NAAC, AICTE etc who in the name of maintaining quality and encouraging work culture, expect you to work on Sundays. Why work on Sundays??? If that work can be finished comfortably on other working days, why unnecessarily should one work on Sundays? I blame it to the lack of planning or in new nomenclature ‘lack of event management.’ In corporate work culture, Sunday has a very significant role to play. It is a mark of smart work; it is a requirement of the demanding time; it is necessary to outdo and outsmart each other on the count of Sunday. I request all those who work on Sundays to ‘tarry’. Don’t run so fast. Stop or else God will stop you soon for ever. Loosing your peace of mind, loosing your appetite, loosing your basic instinct to rest for a while, if you achieve some machine like target, I would count you in machines rather than counting in humans.